1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates generally to bee equipment and, more particularly, to a system for monitoring the status, activity, and health of a beehive.
2. Description of Related Art
Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies. The bees are kept in order to collect their honey and other products that the hive naturally produces to pollinate crops. Another use of raising bees is to sell hives to other beekeepers. Beehive production is affected by a number of different factors. Some factors that may affect production of the bees are temperature within the hive, humidity, and illnesses. It is important to be able to monitor and regulate the controllable factors within the beehive to ensure optimal production.
Different types of products have been developed to assist in monitoring hives. Typically monitoring is done by physical inspection of the hive. A beekeeper visually views the hive and assesses the amount of production that has taken place. Physical inspection has a disadvantage of only granting a snap shot in time or a present condition. It is difficult to fully grasp the development of issues or problems with isolated inspections.
Another method that has been used is to attempt to count the bees within the hive by using a sensor. These have several limitations including only being able to count the passage of a bee through a certain point. Direction of the bee is not tracked or determined. Bee production can be greatly linked to bee population.
Another disadvantage of present beekeeping activities is the difficulty of passive beekeepers to adequately monitor the hive. A large portion of the world lives in urban cities not ideal for the keeping of hives. Therefore, those that do keep a hive often place them at a remote location. The distance between the urban beekeeper and the hive creates a hurdle that limits the ability of the urban beekeeper in properly maintaining the hive.
Although some strides have been made in assisting a beekeeper in properly and adequately monitoring the hive, considerable shortcomings remain. It is desirable to provide a beehive monitoring system configured to make remote location beekeeping more effective and properly communicate the health and status of a hive to the beekeeper.
While the system and method of the present application is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the description herein of specific embodiments is not intended to limit the application to the particular embodiment disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the process of the present application as defined by the appended claims.